Prairie Village will host England’s team in its only hotel. How police prepared
The Prairie Village Police Department will put more than a year’s worth of planning into action as the northeast Johnson County city expects to welcome the England National Football team on Saturday to its only hotel.
FIFA World Cup festivities are kicking into gear as soccer fans welcomed Algeria and Argentina to the Midwest in recent days. The FIFA Fan Festival will kick off Thursday, with events and watch parties at the National World War I Museum and Memorial over the course of the next 18 days.
The fully staffed Prairie Village Police Department, with 48 commissioned officers, have been training alongside other law enforcement agencies to prepare for the anticipated 650,000 people visiting the Kansas City metro area, Prairie Village Police Capt. Josh Putthoff said.
“Even if those numbers are off a little bit more or less … we are expecting a big increase, an influx, in people,” Putthoff said. “We know there’s going to be a lot of people in the metro area, and that includes Prairie Village. We have a vested interest in really just providing police services, public safety protection for anyone who enters our city.”
While the city of Prairie Village won’t be hosting its own watch party or World Cup-related events, the police department will have its hands full with England’s team, often referred to as The Three Lions, staying in their midst.
“For any city right now that is hosting a team or planning any activities, you know, some of these teams and players are big on the world stage,” Putthoff said. “So with that comes the risk of essentially bad actors, people who want to do bad things, and it’s incumbent upon us as law enforcement to provide protection — not just for people entering our city but for people who live here.”
England’s anticipated arrival
England booked the Inn at Meadowbrook, a boutique 54-room hotel just south of Meadowbrook Park. But it’s unclear how many English fans will come to Kansas City or if they will spend time in Prairie Village throughout the tournament.
Putthoff said he couldn’t speak specifically of the England National Team, nor the expected number of visitors coming from across the pond. KC2026 did not respond for comment about the estimated number of people Kansas City is expecting from England before publication.
“I won’t speak directly to England, but what we have found with the four teams that are staying in the metro area is, it’s just what we’re anticipating: Fans being here,” he said. “It really just depends on the different countries. Some of the countries’ fans, they do show up and they’re at the team’s base camp, while others really navigate to where they are playing their games.”
According to reporting from the New York Times, the England National Team is known to draw hordes of fans and journalists during the tournament. KC2026 shared on its website that fans will often gather at bars or restaurants hours before the game starts and may seek out watch parties or other “shared fan experiences.”
‘An influx of people’
With more people coming into town, Putthoff said he anticipates that the metro will see an increase in calls for service. However, he said he hopes that officer training and preparation efforts will help with providing assistance during emergencies both related to the World Cup and “everyday crimes.”
“We’re worried about increased crime — that could be any type of large scale, critical event — but it also means what I call your everyday crimes: the thefts, the scams, the human trafficking,” he said. “For the last year, we have been training our officers on how to detect, how to respond and how to handle those different crimes.”
More people coming to town will mean mandatory overtime, extra law enforcement officers on the road for traffic control, heightened presence in neighborhoods and shopping centers, and assisting with security and escorts for the four teams staying in the metro area, on top of business as usual.
“Our entire focus can’t be on the World Cup. We have our residents, who expect and deserve the same amount of service — whether it’s today or whether it’s in the middle of the World Cup,” he said.
The Prairie Village Police Department doesn’t anticipate road closures, but there will be certain areas that will be designated as no parking, and the sidewalk north of the hotel will be closed. Meadowbrook Park will remain open as normal.
Department costs
Putthoff said the department hasn’t identified a specific dollar amount as part of its World Cup-related investments, but the main costs will come from personnel hours and overtime throughout the duration of the event.
“Fortunately for us, that is reimbursed by FIFA, by KC2026 through the help of the federal government, the money that was allotted to them,” he said. “I don’t have numbers now but certainly after the World Cup we’ll be able to have an exact dollar amount.”
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) allocated $846 million in grants to enhance security and emergency response across the 11 U.S. host cities, with Kansas City receiving nearly $60 million, according to its website. Totals across the federal, state and local level add up to almost $200 million.
While preparations have been overwhelming at times, Putthoff said he feels his department is ready to mitigate, prevent or respond to anything that might come from the World Cup.
“You prepare as much as you can, a lot of it is trying to predict and anticipate what’s actually going to happen, but again we have put so much time and resources into training and staffing levels and I think we’ll be ready,” he said.
